It wouldn't be used for anything intense. Word documents, web browsing, no serious loading. That said, i like to have things that are a bit more powerful than my basic needs for 'just in case' purposes.

£800 would really be top end of the budget, so it'd be nice to get some recommendations in the £700-£800 bracket (really nothing over £800!!), but it'd also be helpful to get recommendations in the £500-£700 bracket too. Too many times when people ask for recommendations, others just focus on the top end of the budget.

We had a look in PC World today & we saw that 15.6" would be a decent screen size for us.

It would be a MUST that the laptop would have to come pre-loaded with Windows 7 and NOT Windows 8. Yes i'm aware of Start8, but i'm still not interested in Windows 8 at all. I'm not choosy over Home/Pro & 32/64 bit. My desktop has Pro 64 bit which i quite like, but if there's little difference between Home & Pro...

The laptop wouldn't have to have 6GB RAM out of the box, just so long as there's space to upgrade to 6GB/8GB.

The website i generally buy from is http://www.ebuyer.com as i generally find them to be cheapest. Have also used http://www.scan.co.uk for parts. I often have Overclockers recommended to me, but i generally find them to be quite pricey.

There some decent laptops on PC Specialist that you can modify the parts of, alright prices too. But whatever anyone says, I would really stay away from Dell. I've had 2 Dell laptops, both have had problems. I have a friend who has a Dell laptop too and has had nothing but problems. Their customer support is just poor and the build quality is also quite poor.

I've only ever experienced Acer laptops in the past. One had WinVista on it, the other Win7 Home. They were both ok, although the battery life was pretty diabolical on the WinVista laptop. This is something i'd like to avoid - i'd want a decent battery.